In December, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) brought the world together to talk about the internet. I tend to take a definite interest in cybersecurity, but there were many more important topics discussed. They ranged from diversity in the technology sector through to philosophy in the digital age. Cybersecurity was, nonetheless, a major theme. My colleagues and I found an agenda packed with varied sessions that sought to tackle anything from effective cooperation between CERTS, the difficulties in developing an international framework for cybersecurity norms and other issues the Digital Geneva Convention touches on, to the very real cross-border legal challenges in cloud forensics.

The real strength of the IGF is not just its breadth of topics, but also the way in which it deliberately fosters multi-stakeholder discussions. Delegates have equal voices, whether they are civil society groups, governments, or businesses. And while there were differences in opinion and perspectives, all are heard and as such contribute to richer conversations, and ultimately more valuable outcomes.

Certainly, the expectation is not that there would be immediate policy outcomes from the IGF. Ideas need time to grow and evolve. The exchanges of ideas can and does contribute to decision-making for Microsoft, and hopefully across the other participants attending. I found it particularly valuable to hear the voices and opinions of the civil society. Whether it was hearing a perspective of humanitarian actors, or understanding the challenges related to cybersecurity policy making in emerging markets.

Microsoft believes that this wider discussion among stakeholders leads to deeper understanding of the complex challenges posed by cyberspace. That’s why we took the opportunity of this year’s IGF to organize a series of both smaller and individualized, as well as larger discussions around the different aspects of our proposal for a Digital Geneva Convention. The discussions investigated what the industry tech accord could involve and what the civil society would like us to do as an industry, but they also looked at the feasibility of creating a convention that would protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in cyberspace from harm by states and at what the path on that decade long road would be. We will be taking these insights and ideas back with us and incorporating them into our plans for 2018.

The Digital Geneva Convention was however by far not the only cybersecurity-focused topic we engaged in. There were sessions that looked at increasing CERT capacities, encryption, the exchange of cybersecurity best practices within IGF, as well those that sought to outline the future of global cybersecurity capacity building, which we believe is essential to the world’s collective ability to respond to cyber-attacks and needed both for individual countries and at the level of regional groupings such as ASEAN and the OAS. We also previewed the research that we are planning to publish shortly that looks at the latest global cybersecurity policy and legislative trends, analyzing data from over 100 countries and highlighting increased activity across critical infrastructure policies, militarization of cyberspace continues, expansion of law enforcement powers, cybercrime legislation, and cybersecurity skills concerned. Overall, my colleagues across Microsoft contributed to over 20 different sessions and panels, including on affordable access to the internet, where we were able to outline elements of our Airband Initiative, digital civility, where we presented the results of our latest study (to be released publicly shortly), future of work and artificial intelligence, and others.

Multi-stakeholder fora like the IGF are essential to preserving an open, global, safe, secure, resilient, and interconnected Internet. What the world needs is more such broad-based, holistic policy discussions. When it comes to building policy in cyberspace, policy-makers must acknowledge the interdependence of economic, socio-cultural, technological, and governance factors. That means they should actively foster more multi-stakeholder policy development for a, learning from the IGF. For the technology sector and civil society groups, our task must be to continue to push for inclusive, open, transparent, bottom-up policy-making, and to make the most of the opportunities that do exist.